Columbus East’s Allison Craig sets up for a shot during a basketball game against East Central at Columbus East High School in Columbus, Ind., Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
After giving up 73 and 94 points on Saturday in losses to two teams currently ranked in the top three in the state, Columbus East girls basketball coach Danny Brown stressed the importance of defense going into Wednesday’s matchup with Class 4A No. 14 East Central.
The Olympians took the lesson to heart. The held the Trojans to 20 points in the first half and went on to post a 67-54 victory in a rematch of last year’s sectional final.
“I thought we played great team defense,” Brown said. “We talked Saturday that we had to get better defensively, and we were. We came out and were more the aggressor today. We kind of changed our defense a little bit, and it made a big difference. Everybody has to be aggressive, and I thought we put pressure on the ball, especially in that first quarter.”
East Central’s Josie Trabel matched her total from last year’s sectional with a 34-point performance. But it was an across-the-board effort from East (2-2) that led to the victory.
Saige Stahl, who was a teammate of Trabel on last year’s Indiana Junior All-Stars, put up 22 points and nine rebounds. Point guard Allison Craig scored a career-high 19 points, hitting four 3-pointer and four key free throws in the fourth quarter.
“My teammates really helped me build confidence after the Saturday games, when we struggled,” Craig said. “They had a lot of faith in me, so I appreciate them.”
The Olympians shot 50 percent (10 of 20) from 3-point range, while the Trojans were only 18 percent (3 of 17) from beyond the arc. Craig was 4 of 5, and Maeleigh Roberts was 3 of 5 on her way to a 10-point night.
“It was a whole different game (than Saturday),” Craig said. “We played really aggressive and came out really aggressive from the start, and offensively, we were really moving the ball around quick. The inside did a great job of finishing, which opened up the outside.”
“We really played as a team,” Stahl added. “We were able to bring the ball up the court and run more of an offense rather than a scramble. We did a different defense, and we set up our offense more. So I think we just moved the ball around a lot better.”
East jumped out to an early 8-0 lead on a basket by Leah Bachmann and back-to-back 3-pointers from Craig. The Olympians led 17-8 after one quarter and 28-20 at halftime.
“I thought Allison set the tone early,” Brown said. “Defensively, we put pressure on the ball, and she got it going offensively with some big shots, and some big free throws at the end made the difference. She learned a lot from Saturday’s game. If you don’t learn anything from these games, it’s not going to help you, but it helped her. She played a heck of a game.”
After Craig opened the third quarter with a 3-pointer to push the lead to 11, East Central scored 10 in a row to cut the lead to 31-29. A 3-pointer by Roberts stemmed the tide, but two more Trojan baskets made it a 34-33 game.
Roberts and Trabel then exchanged 3-pointers before a three-point play by Stahl and a banked-in 3-pointer from Jenna Guse sparked a 9-0 run that stretched the lead back to 48-36. The Trojans got as close as five on the fourth quarter before the Olympians pulled away.
“Beating East Central tonight gives us a major boost,” Stahl said. “Hopefully, we can go out later in the season and really show what we are capable of.”
“They’ve been our nemesis for about four years now,” Brown added. “We needed this win, not because of anything that happened in the sectional last year or what might happen this year. We needed it because of how we played Saturday against two highly-ranked teams. We took that, and we watched a lot of film on Monday and changed some things defensively and offensively. We got some people in the right spots on Tuesday, and I was real proud of the change and the turnaround of night and day from Saturday to Wednesday. That just shows that they’re paying attention. It’s a long season, and they want to be good.”
Columbus East 67, East Central 54
East Central;8;12;18;18;—;54
Columbus East;17;11;20;19;—;67
East Central (4-3): Caitlyn Dick 3 0-0 8, Laney Baker 3 0-0 6, Emily Klem 2 0-0 4, Josie Trabel 12 9-12 34, Anna Black 0 0-1 0, Karlie Davis 1 0-0 2, Addy Arnult 0 0-0 0, Brooke Carpenter 0 0-2 0. Totals: 21 9-15 54.
Columbus East (2-2): Jenna Guse 3 0-0 7, Kimberly Carothers 0 0-0 0, Allison Craig 5 5-6 19, Maeleigh Roberts 3 1-2 10, Heidi Murphy 0 0-0 0, Saige Stahl 8 4-6 22, Brielle Stevens 0 0-0 0, Leah Bachmann 4 1-1 9, Messiah Trapp 0 0-2 0. Totals: 23 11-17 67.
3-point goals: East Central 3 (Dick 2, Trabel). Columbus East 10 (Craig 4, Roberts 2, Stahl 2, Guse).
